Music City Center Coalition names new leadership team

The Music City Center Coalition, which recently re-formed to make the final push for a new downtown convention center, held its first meeting last week. More than 100 people heard from Mayor Karl Dean, the project’s chief advocate, a coalition news release said.

The coalition was already planning to get out into the community a lot this fall to make the convention center case. It might do so even more now that Nashville’s Priorities, a group of skeptics/critics, has formed to raise questions about the benefit of the plan and make sure it’s fully understood before the Metro Council signs off on it.

Along with a formidable lobbyist in former Deputy Gov. Dave Cooley and PR help from Seigenthaler Public Relations, the coalition has new officers. It’s not that much different from the group’s original leadership team, with the exception of former AT&T Tennessee President Marty Dickens, whom Dean has appointed to the convention center authority, which would build and operate the facility.

Here’s the new coalition lineup from a news release I received Friday afternoon:

The MCCC is chaired by Ron Samuels, president of Avenue Bank. Sam Howard, president of Phoenix Holdings and former chairman of the Nashville Convention Center Commission, will serve as vice chair for the volunteer group. Other members of the MCCC leadership team include Dr. T.B. Boyd, R.H. Boyd Publishing Corporation; Dr. Bob Fisher, Belmont University; Lewis Lavine, Center for Nonprofit Management; Bert Mathews, The Mathews Company; Jeff Mefford, Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau; Ralph Schulz, Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce; and Butch Spyridon, Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau.